Author: Lisa

Occasional Story

/ Lisa / 3 Comments

Every so often I digress from writing to share a story.

A few years ago beavers  built this huge dam in the creek on our property. We didn’t mind because, after all, we had moved into their backyard. At the same time though, we didn’t want our place flooded. So once a week my father and I would hike  to the dam. I would walk out onto the dam itself with a hoe, and pull up the new construction, handing my father sticks and branches and small trees. It was a compromise of sorts. They could have their dam, but we kept it at a height that prevented flooding.

So here I was on the dam, hoe in hand, dipping into water that rushed between my chore boots and over the top of the dam. I scooped into the water and came up with a salmon instead of a branch. Amazingly I hadn’t impaled the salmon, and since I was in the middle of lifting upward, all I ended up doing was scooping the salmon up and over the dam. It splashed away into the beaver pond and my father said ‘that’s a fishing story no one is going to believe’. Catching a Coho salmon on a hoe.

With all that work on the dam, though, I never saw a beaver. I tried. I’d sneak down there late at night, I’d sit by the dam for hours trying to be still. Nothing worked. And then one night the river flooded. I’d been working on running the emergency operation center all day, it was late at night, and my husband came to get me because my car wouldn’t make it through the water. Driving home in the big truck, the headlights picked out a beaver. Swimming across the road with a big branch. Taking advantage of the floodwaters to move construction supplies. All those hours I’d spent hiding by the dam and all I needed to do to see a beaver was drive down the road.

A man I knew did an experiment to see what kind of wood beavers preferred for eating, vs. what kind of wood they preferred for building. Using 2×4 lumber, he built a framework that held branches from multiple species of trees and set it up near a dam. In the morning the branches were all there and the lumber had been taken and incorporated into the dam. The beavers prefer milled lumber when available.

This same guy also tried an experiment for sound. Beavers build because of the sound of running water. The more water flows, the more they reproduce to get help to dam that flowing water. So he took a recording of running water and set the tape recorder by the dam. The same dam with the lumber-loving beavers. He wanted to know if they would continue to build even if there was no actual water physically flowing over the dam. If it was purely sound that made them work.

The next day he found the beavers had dammed his tape recorder, packing mud all around it.

Pretty smart.

Confession of a Self-Defeating Writer

/ Lisa / 4 Comments

In other words, I’m my own worst enemy, as the cliché goes, and struggle daily to change.

Yesterday, at my son’s doctor appointment, the doctor mentioned that his niece’s young adult book had just been picked up by a major publisher, and that Sherman Alexei (someone I greatly admire) was one of the people who had written a cover blurb for her. Trying to be brave, I mentioned that I, too, had a book out. I asked him to give my compliments to his niece, and we had a nice conversation.

But inside? The whole time I was thinking, wow, his niece is a real writer. Followed by instant fear that he would ask me who published my book, to which I’d have to admit, ‘me’. Or, I figured I could say, ‘it’s an Indie publishing’ hoping he didn’t know that meant ‘me’. I felt embarrassed and even a tiny bit ashamed. My inner writer immediately cowered in her dark, dank, closet, cringing, while the voice that sounds like my mom shouted outside the door, ‘YOU’RE NOT A REAL WRITER! YOU’RE NOT EVEN VERY GOOD!’

Come on, really? At this time of my life, I still cower before that inner critic? How absolutely stupid. And yet, being very honest here, I do.

So what is a real writer? I know the answer to that question. Anyone who writes. What is an author? To me, anyone who is published. I have friends who have published their own books and are very successful at it. Susan Schreyer comes immediately to mind. Multiple books out, always busy marketing in a very professional manner. She’s a real author.

Okay, I just had a lightbulb moment. I don’t feel like an author because I only have one book out, I’m not wild about the cover (which was a mistake), I’m not doing a huge amount of marketing because I don’t think marketing kicks in until you have more than one book out, and I always feel my writing comes up short. So success to me, is multiple books, a marketing plan, and most importantly, the confidence to say, I’m in charge of my writing and publishing. I don’t need a big name publisher behind me to feel like an author.

In spite of feeling like a failure as an author, and feeling like a not very good writer, I honestly love my story. I’m having fun working on the sequel. I think it will be a good story, too. I know I do a good job with setting because that soars for me. I like my characters; some even make me laugh. So why isn’t that good enough?

I guess because I am from that generation that wrote during the time when publishing meant being accepted by someone else. My brain knows that is no longer important in this day and age, and that publishers and agents are struggling. But my writing soul still assumes the mantle of inadequacy.

I know, it’s stupid. But it’s honest, and I haven’t figured out how to change.  And I know exactly what is going to happen now. My friends are going to send me emails bawling me out and telling me I’m a good writer. And I’ll thank them, and inside I’ll think, ‘of course you have to say that, you’re a friend’. Continuing the self-defeating role.

For now anyway. I’ll get this figured out. I’m actually a stronger person than that writer cowering in the closet.

 

A New Poem

/ Lisa / 3 Comments

A friend of mine, Ré, posted a poem on her blog https://sparksinshadow.wordpress.com/2012/06/27/drunken-poem-free-drink-event-vodka/ and I liked it so much I asked her if I could post it here to share. If you go to her blog you’ll see the story behind the post, but for now, please take a moment to go to the sidebar under ‘Poem or Quote’ and read her words.

I hope the poem will resonate with you as it did with me, especially the last lines.

I know the link is long but I can’t get the ‘insert link’ button to work. Sorry!